PDF smartphone voting: Impossible or inevitable?

SMARTPHONE VOTING: IMPOSSIBLE OR INEVITABLE?

Larry Moore

Chief Executive Officer Clear Ballot Group, Inc.

7 Water St. | Suite 7 Boston, MA. 02109

Nimit Sawhney

Chief Executive Officer Voatz, Inc.

50 Milk St | 12th Floor Boston MA 02109

Presented at the Winter Conference National Association of Secretaries of State

Fairmont Georgetown Hotel Washington, D.C. February 16, 2018

Smartphone Voting: Impossible or Inevitable?

Mid-term elections are upon us and with them comes the inevitable observation and question, "Voter turnout is declining, why can't I vote on my smartphone?" Historically, the argument against any form of nonpaper voting has been about security and auditability. Yet, in the financial industry, which requires extreme security, an exciting technology is upending conventional thinking of what is possible. That foundational technology i is the "blockchain" which has enabled secure, low-cost financial transactions like Bitcoin ii.

This paper presents the concept of a Mobile Voting channel: a new way for voters to receive, mark and cast their ballot. This new voting channel responds directly to the challenges of security, convenience and accessibility that have stymied progress in improving voter experience and lowering the cost of elections.

A mobile voting channel, based on the smartphone and secured by the blockchain is fundamentally different than touchscreen or online voting: First, that it is mobile and accessible enables voters to vote privately and independently in the way they live their lives. The smartphone is well-understood by the largest segments of the electorate. It is far less expensive than infrequently used, single purpose voting devices. Coupled with blockchain technology, an immutable, auditable record of every vote is automatically maintained while preserving voter anonymity. It allows the elections industry to leverage the major ongoing corporate investments in smartphones, accessibility, usability and security. Finally, with improved voter convenience, a mobile voting channel offers an antidote to upcoming adverse effects on turnout caused by demographics shifts.

Three forces have converged to create the potential for a new mobile voting channel: rapidly changing demographics, ubiquitous smartphones and the blockchain.

Demographics

An analysis of voter demographics shows that voters in the 18-50 age range will dominate voter turnout in the coming decade. That is concerning if turnout, as expected, will further decline as the Baby Boomers age out and the low-turnout Millennials and Gen Xers begin to cast a larger percentage of the U.S. vote.

As shown in the chart on the right, in 2016, 86% of the U.S. vote was

cast by the three largest segments of the voting population: Millennials

(ages 18-34 in 2016), Generation X (ages 35-50) and Baby Boomers (ages

51-69). In 2015, Millennials passed the Boomers to become the nation's

largest living generation.

Source: Pew FactTank. July 31, 2017

While Boomers now account for the largest percentage of the vote, nat-

urally occurring age-related disabilities (e.g., mobility and eyesight) will create additional challenges for them

to vote. Absent innovations in accessibility and convenience, the sheer difficulty of aging Boomers simply

getting to the polls will depress turnout for this active segment.

Richard Fry at the Pew Research Center said it well, "While the growth in the number of Millennials who are eligible to vote underscores the potential electoral clout of today's young adults, Millennials remain far from the largest generational bloc of actual voters. It is one thing to be eligible to vote and another entirely to cast a ballot." iii

? 2018 Clear Ballot Group, Inc. ? 2018 Voatz, Inc.

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Smartphones

The rate of technological diffusion is measured by the length of time a technology takes to be adopted by 25% of the population. At three years, the Smartphone surpasses all other technologies iv.

Millennials are the first segment of the voting age population to grow up in the age of the Internet, personal computer technology and broadband communications. In 2017, according to the Pew Research Center, 92% of Millennials, 88% of Gen X and 74% of the younger Boomers (ages 51-64) own smartphone v.

Widely publicized articles on the FBI's inability to crack the secure enclaves (i.e. trusted containers) on Apple and certain Android smartphones support the assertion that the smartphone is also among the most secure computing platforms vi. In short, the ever-improving smartphone is a secure technology platform familiar to most voters.

The Blockchain

The blockchain is a ledger that runs on distributed servers. Election jurisdictions start the process by crediting each voter with secure tokens that have a one-to-one correspondence to the ovals that voter would have received on a paper ballot. The voter makes selections on an app on their smartphone; overvotes are prevented. Once submitted, the vote is verified and confirmed by the distributed servers. Upon verification, the vote is debited (i.e. subtracted) from the voter's ledger and credited (i.e. added) to the candidate's ledger.

Elements of a mobile voting channel secured by the blockchain

As envisioned in simplified form, a federally / state certified mobile voting channel would consist of:

? Accessible electronic ballot styles - created by and securely transmitted by the jurisdiction to the smartphone app of eligible voters at the start of voting.

? Broadly available devices - Smartphones, purchased and owned by voters, running a secure, open source and certified Voting App that has been downloaded from a commercial App Store.

? Infrastructure ? Consists of geographically distributed servers each authorized by a state's Chief Election Officer and running open source software. Servers could, for example, be distributed across universities, political parties, the media and in highly secure hosting facilities like Amazon.

? Results consolidation ? Mobile voting results would be consolidated with all other voting channels.

Graphic Depiction of a Mobile Voting Channel

Ballot Smartphones delivery with Voting App

? 2018 Clear Ballot Group, Inc. ? 2018 Voatz, Inc.

Distributed servers

Blockchain

Infrastructure transactions

Results consolidation

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A graphic explanation of how a Mobile Voting channel could work

Setup: initialization, registration, blank ballot delivery

How a blockchain works for voting

? 2018 Clear Ballot Group, Inc. ? 2018 Voatz, Inc.

Image from Financial Times edited for Voting Page 3 of 5

Overview of the Vote-by-Mail Process

The graphic below illustrates the steps involved in vote-by-mail, the closest analog to what voting on a smartphone would look like. This chart shows where improvements in election operations and voter experience can be made with a smartphone-based, mobile voting channel.

1. Registration

2. Authentication

3. Logic & Accuracy Testing

4. Blank ballot delivery

5. Accessible ballot marking

6. Verification of selections

7. Marked ballot return

8 Signature verification

9. Voter credit

10. Separation of ballot from inner envelope

?10a. Ballot duplication (if necessary)

?10b. Batch operations

11. Tabulation of paper ballots

12. Resolution of ambiguous voter intent

13. Election Night reporting

Legend: Standard vote-by-mail process

? 2018 Clear Ballot Group, Inc. ? 2018 Voatz, Inc.

14. Canvass

Likely improvement in voter experience with

mobile voting

15. Post-Election Audit

Likely improvement in election operations with mobile voting

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